Rishi Sunak: 3 Ways To Break Down Exactly How Rich The PM Actually Is
Rishi Sunak is the richest person to reside at No.10 Downing Street
Rishi Sunak is the richest person to ever reside in No.10 Downing Street.
In fact, a graphic from polling company Savanta ComRes found last week that the most common word Brits associate with the new prime minister is “rich”.
Sunak dismissed criticisms over his net worth in July, claiming that in the UK “we judge people not by their bank account, we judge them by their character and their actions”.
When the wealth of his wife Ashrata Murty is taken into consideration, they have a combined net worth of £730 million.
This is due to their stakes in Murty’s billionaire father’s software company, Infosys, and Sunak’s past as a hedge fund manager.
But it’s hard to comprehend just how much money this is, especially at a time of double-digit inflation – so here’s three other ways of looking at it.
1. It would take more than 22,000 years for most Brits to match his wealth
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently concluded that the average salary of a UK citizen is £33,000, and the net worth of the average UK household is £300,000.
Bankless Times has since crunched the numbers and believe it would the average Brit 22,121 years to reach Sunak’s current net worth – and that’s if they spent no money on expenses or bills.
As the outlet points out, that time period is akin to going halfway back in time to see the first European humans walk the Earth.
Even if someone earned more than £30 million every year, they would have to work for 24 years and spend nothing to reach that level.
So Sunak has around 2,500 times more wealth than the average Brit, as journalist Nellius Mukuhi calculated.
2. He’s the richest Western leader
Sunak’s wealth far outshines that of his counterparts in Europe, the US and Canada.
Only Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy comes vaguely close, with a net worth of £26.5 million, according to estimates from UK outlet Novara Media.
US president Joe Biden is estimated to be worth £7.1million, French president Emmanuel Macron £1.1million and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau just £700,000.
Rishi Sunak became the UK's Prime Minister today, making him the richest leader in the Western world.
With a net worth of £730m, his wealth vastly exceeds that of other prominent leaders like Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron. pic.twitter.com/RVDFizgPtE— Novara Media (@novaramedia) October 25, 2022
3. He has more than double the wealth of King Charles III
According to The Guardian, Charles and his wife, the queen consort Camilla, have a shared wealth of around £350 million.
However, it’s worth noting that a lot of the royal wealth is in the larger crown estate, which only belongs to the reigning monarch while they sit on the throne. It is not their private property.
Still, Labour MP Nadia Whittome made this comparison between the monarch and the prime minister on Twitter, adding: “Remember this whenever [Sunak] talks about making ‘tough decisions’ that working class people will pay for.”
Rishi Sunak and his wife sit on a fortune of £730,000,000.
That’s around twice the estimated wealth of King Charles III.
Remember this whenever he talks about making “tough decisions” that working class people will pay for.— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) October 24, 2022
